Gamzee laughs, delighted, and possibly for the first time since Shinra left, fully in the moment and not thinking about anything else. The tiny snake, with its little black oil-drop eyes, has entranced him, and he wonders if they can hold it when it comes all the way out. Right now, though he's perfectly happy to just watch the bitty thing flicking its tiny tongue as it starts to slither a little free of the shell.

"He's motherfuckin' perfect," Gamzee declares with great satisfaction, and turns to grin at Tavros, and-

WHAM.

It's not subtle - maybe because there had been a time when he had had a raging crush on his friend, and it had taken so much to actually get past that and move on, to accept that Tavros wasn't into that. And all of a sudden all of that has come flooding back in a great wave, a whallop of emotion: how adorable (and kissable) Tavros looks when he's excited, how the Hufflepuff makes him so purely happy sometimes, high and flying even without the drugs, how he never feels lonely with the smaller boy, ever.

"Oh. Damn."